Homer's Television Christmas Special

The film crew for Homer’s Christmas Extravaganza arrived by helicopter in a cloud of whirling blown snow just before the holiday. Our dog wasn’t sure about this flying snowmachine at first and was most perturbed. 

Until he saw the cameras. “Great. I knew they’d be back!” he thought. Homer very much enjoyed his starring role in a Channel 4 documentary (see Escape to the Wild and Escape to the Wild Woolwich Style) and has been waiting for his second season.

Neil, before they arrived. Not quite sure he's looking "bush" enough

As soon as the cameras were rolling, he surprised the crew with an ingenious storyline he’d invented. “So how about we pretend we have a threatening intruder and I have to bark real fierce at him? Yeah!”

Bounding photogenically across the ice

At least that what was going on in Homer’s mind, we think. For us humans, what happened was a small crew who might be filming in the area wanted some test shots of local landscapes. The filming is not primarily about us, nor crushingly for Homer, our photogenic and star-struck husky.

The director asked if they could film us walking round the property and talking about it.

Our beautiful house with guess who sat outside

I’ve been upstaged by a few egotistical actors during my professional life in the theatre, but never a by a co-star’s incessant barking.

So, I’m telling the camera- “we rebuilt the cache as we needed somewhere to store stuff-“

“WOOF!” says Homer. “WOOF-WOOF!” he roars ferociously at “The Intruder,” just out of shot, whom he knows damn well to be the chopper pilot. “WOOF-WOOF! WOOF-WOOF!”

Neil and I were stunned. Homer never barks, I’ve remarked on it many times in this blog. And nor would he stop once he’d started.

They were very nice about it but he’s probably barked us out of any further filming, and has been insufferable since. But more on that later.

Here they are making a fast exit in a magnificent blizzard of snow-

Christmas turned out to be fairly exciting. We didn’t make it back to town for our mail but managed an accidental and extremely arduous expedition instead.

Snowshoeing on Christmas Day

I love reading about polar expeditions, fantastic tales of hardship, camaraderie and achievement at the extreme tips of our planet. I’ve read of folk trekking alone across Antarctica, or using equipment and clothing from the 1920s and other such feats of derring-do. I have a huge amount of respect for them all. 

Neil fallen over. Luckily I always carry the camera so he can't get to it when I fall

But I’d have so much more respect for someone who just did it with a horribly heavy and unexpected period. That would sort the men from the boys, so to speak. Do let me tell you about our lovely Boxing Day ski.

It was 32 below but windless which is actually not a bad temperature for skiing. We were well prepared with rucksacks packed with extra layers, hot water, biscuits and fire-starter kits and planned on a 12 mile ski along our wonderfully smooth trail downriver. It was just stunning, but as we rounded the first bend, a nasty wind picked up behind us. We knew we’d have it hitting us in the face all the way home, but didn’t want to give up on the day.

My ass and the backs of my legs began to burn so badly I stuffed by down body warmer into the back of my pants to keep the gale off, giving myself an unflatteringly huge butt. After a couple of hours, we took off our skis and climbed through thigh-deep snow up the bank into the trees and out of the wind to take a break.

The wind has blown the snow clean off the ice in places

Neil refused any food or water and didn’t want to put on his extra layers of clothing, despite my imploring him to. I know why. You get lazy when you feel that cold and just want to hunker down. You hope it goes away. With a wind chill of around -45c, it doesn’t.

We continued downriver for another half-hour before Neil told me he could no longer feel his toes. We both knew that could mean frostbite.

What you need in such dangerous circumstances is someone, preferably a spouse, to say, “If you don’t eat something, drink, put on your warm mitts and extra layers right now I’ll have to slap you across the face in case you’ve gone hypothermic.” 

Up the bloody bank again

Ever the dutiful spouse, and more than a bit annoyed he’d refused to do all this half an hour ago, I was ready to oblige. We trekked back up the bank in thigh-deep snow, again, to get out of the wind. Once he’d done all the above he felt much better and realised he didn’t have frostbite at all but his ski boots were pinching.

I said, “I told you so,” which is another lovely thing you want to hear from your spouse in a potential crisis.I was much relieved Neil didn’t have frostbite, yet. And “yet” was the keyword as it was bitingly cold and we now had to head back into the wind. I pulled the fur rim of my hat down to meet my neck ring and let the frost feathers freeze across the half inch gap to shield my eyes. 

I could hardly see but I was worried about getting frost nip on my cheeks. Goggles freeze up instantly in those temps so I only use them if I really have to otherwise I’m blundering along, blind as bat wearing glasses made of concrete.

Selfie. Felt like it might have been my last

The wind got worse on the river, and blew the snow into large curling drifts. We had a 6 miles to go. It was at that point I got a sudden and very heavy period and along with it, that feeling of the life-blood draining out of me and an imperative need to lay down on a comfy sofa. So, ski’s off again, back up the bank through thigh deep snow and into the trees. Undo all the carefully sealed and now iced up layers and bare me ass to the wind whilst I try to sort it out. Great.

Back on the river, Homer had his own drama. He came upon a caribou at very close quarters. He’s never come close to one before. He loves charging along their trails with his tail in the air and an “I’m gonna get me a ‘boo!” expression on his face. He’s seen them at a distance but I’m not sure he understands perspective, and probably thought they were hoofed rabbit-like creatures. They are a quite a bit bigger up close and his killer instinct suddenly evaporated.

Caribou ran right through our yard whilst we were out, tracks here in front of the boat

But the silly ‘boo waited for us to get very near before running, which set Homer off after it and up into the woods. However, he reappeared almost immediately and I quickly worked out why. The wind was blowing so hard our ski tracks from an hour ago had disappeared so the very large wolf tracks I now saw must have been from minutes before. No wonder the poor caribou was dithering about which way to go.

After the fright of the giant caribou and then the wolves, Homer decided it would be safest to ride home standing on my skis but I’m afraid that was just one inconvenience too far for me. I kept prodding him off with the sharp end of my ski pole.

Once we eventually rounded the bend, the wind died down again and we were treated to this. 

Moon, river, celebrity sled dog

And all the discomfort, the pain of the cold, the pinchy ski boots, the frost, the blood, the wind-burnt ass, the freezing eyeballs, it was just all bloody worth it. Look at that. Marvellous.

Arriving home, moon over our brush piles on the river

Homer's been taking an unwelcome starring role in our home videos too. We made a film of us riding our incredibly steep ramp to our wood cutting area like a pair of Evel Knievels in snow bibs.

Usually Homer has a little patch out of the way where he likes to sit, but not once he sees the Go Pro. Oh no. he must be at the top of the hill, in the centre of the frame and almost in the path of the machine. 

In the second shot, he has the brilliant idea that the film needs some jeopardy and charges out in front of me like a lunatic half way down the hill. You can see him running ahead of the machine over the jumble ice. 

That snowmachine currently has no brakes so his bid for stardom was rather reckless and he absolutely astounded Neil and I when he ran out in front of it. 

Neil rides the machine up, I ride it down, but Homer is the star of both shots and still under the illusion his is being filmed for his xmas special.

Hope all our lovely readers had a very Merry Christmas and wishing you a Happy New Year. We plan another expedition this week as we still have to get our Christmas parcel from my Mum and Aunt at the PO in Dawson. Our New Year's resolution is to have a few less arduous adventures so I think we'll get a cab, perhaps towing a winnebago for our celebrity husky.

Read next week's blog to see how that goes...

Our Christmas tree in festive bunny boot stand